International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Today, the 25th of November, marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The United Nations have officially recognised the day since 7th February 2000, however, the history of the date goes back to 1960, when three sisters were assassinated by order of the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo.

The Mirabel sisters (Patricia, Minerva and María Teresa) were political activists and founders of the Revolutionary Movement that were involved in activities that opposed the fascist regime in the Dominican Republic.

In 1981 the day was chosen to commemorate the sisters and also to raise awareness of violence against women in a more broad sense by the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros.

The UK is yet to fully recognise the day and we would like to change that, especially given the prevalence of the issue in our society.

Violence against women comes in many forms, whether that be physical or emotional; some of the most common forms in the UK being domestic and sexual violence.

If you’re a young woman, as I am, I can almost guarantee that if you tried to count on your hands how many people you know who have been sexually assaulted, you would run out of fingers.

Statistics from January this year show that at least 85,000 women in the UK experience rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault EVERY YEAR.

If this statistic isn’t alarming enough for you, how about the 1 in 4 women who are victims of sexual abuse or the 1 in 6 CHILDREN.

If that’s not enough what about the 2.4 million people last year who were victims of domestic abuse, two thirds of which were women.

Let’s not forget about a certain group of marginalised women who are facing extreme increases in violence recently, trans women.

Trans women are over four times as likely than cisgender women are to be victims of violent crime. Unfortunately, some of this violence is coming directly from other women, a lot of which are self proclaimed feminists, trans-exclusionary, but feminists still.

We should be standing together as women, today of all days, to talk about these issues.

Women experience violence on a daily basis and it’s tiring. It’s time to admit that this is an issue. Men need to stop hiding behind the “but it’s not all men” mentality and recognise the real struggles that women face. They need to use their social capital to help change society for the better.

Let’s make International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women a real International Day because it is a very real issue that we should all be fighting for.